


Nott A Coffee Shop

by sparxwrites



Series: Nott a Coffee Shop AU [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Poly, Chaos, Coffee Shops, Comedy, Cults, Dark Comedy, Drug Dealing, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Sex, Organized Crime, Recreational Drug Use, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26754358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: "The strangest day of Jester’s life so far starts with a trip to her local coffee shop, and with a man at the counter telling her that he thinks his girlfriend may be dead. The strangest day of Jester’s life so far, second day in a row, starts with a free coffee fromNott A Coffee Shop."(Or: the one in which Nott runs the strangest coffee shop in town, Fjord is having a Bad Day, and Jester's just along for the ride - though the free coffee and part-time job are bonus.)
Relationships: Caleb Widogast/Nott | Veth Brenatto, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionette preslash, Many others if you squint or count pre-shipping, Yeza Brenatto/Nott | Veth Brenatto, Yeza Brenatto/Nott | Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Series: Nott a Coffee Shop AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2117703
Comments: 58
Kudos: 122





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hoodienanami](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoodienanami/gifts).



> Based on [this](https://ms-demeanor.tumblr.com/post/614556908517507072/sometimes-i-forget-that-i-really-am-pretty-weird) glorious tumblr post, and also [this](https://twitter.com/Loeybug/status/1292656242045878272) twitter video. Sometimes you just see something and it has such powerful Mighty Nein energies you have to write a whole damn au about it.
> 
> Many thanks to @hoodienanami for helping me come up with the idea, and plotting various scenes out through keyboard-smash discord conversations. Thanks also to @capitola, for showing me the twitter video, and also for allowing me to use the iconic line "Well, sometimes you're the bee, and sometimes you're the cup." And, as usual, thanks to @ladyofrosefire for the beta.

The strangest day of Jester’s life so far starts with a trip to her favourite coffee shop, and with a man in the queue telling her that he thinks his girlfriend may be dead.

“Ex-girlfriend, actually. Maybe. It’s complicated.” Jester nods, sympathetically, as though she too has had an ex-girlfriend-actually-maybe-it’s-complicated before. “Actually, I’m not sure we were ever dating to begin with, but– look. I just wondered whether it’s normal for someone who usually texts you every day to just… stop? Is that some sort of… _girl thing_ , or, I don’t know…?”

The possibly-dead maybe-girlfriend isn’t even the strange part, actually. _Nott A Coffee Shop_ is the kind of place that tends to attract the sort of people who will tell strangers intimate details of their life whilst queueing for coffee.

It also tends to attract the sort of people who have dead girlfriends, or dead husbands, or who are wanted for a string of bank robberies over in Exandria but that’s all a big misunderstanding, really, don’t worry about it, sweetheart. It’s a small, strange little shop, tucked out of the way on the edge of an industrial estate, with five tables in the whole place, two outside, and a pastry menu of ‘whatever we have today, and be grateful’. It’s not _dirty_ , per se, but there’s a permanent air of pervasive grime and disarray that clings to both the shop itself and its employees.

Jester thinks it’s charming, in a half-the-clientele-are-undoubtedly-wanted-criminals sort of way.

Given her dad had been the one to recommend the place to her, that isn’t even speculation – it’s just a statement of fact. She’s pretty sure the owner’s husband is one of his favourite suppliers, and she’s even _more_ pretty sure that the shop itself is a money laundering front. Albeit a money laundering front that does _really good coffee._

All of which means, however, that the weird part of this interaction is that the guy looks… normal. He clearly showers regularly, has a normal-person haircut – with an _attractive_ streak of grey in the front – and is wearing a muscle t-shirt with some kind of sports team on it. If he even commits crimes at all, they’re the white collar kind, which in Jester’s opinion are pretty much baby crimes compared to the stuff her dad gets up to.

In short, he’s everything a usual patron of _Nott A Coffee Shop_ isn’t.

“I _mean_ …” says Jester, thoughtfully. “You probably know her better than I do, and like, if she usually texts you like all the time, I would be _pretty_ concerned.” The man’s face falls. “But, you know, I am _practically_ a doctor, and I could totally come and help you check on your– on this woman who may or may not be dead, if that would help _at all_.”

She’s in the first year of a pre-med degree, which is close enough to _practically a doctor_ that it’s not a lie. Probably. She does feel a little bit bad about how hopeful the man looks, though.

“You are? Wow, I mean– that’s a very generous offer, I–”

“ _FJORD_.”

The man – Fjord, presumably – jumps at the distinctive screech of the coffee shop’s owner, Nott herself. A tiny woman, about four-foot-nothing and undoubtedly standing on a chair behind the counter to even see over it, Nott is somehow the most alarming person Jester’s ever met. The most alarming person Fjord’s ever met, too, apparently, judging by the fear in his eyes.

“Oh, uh,” he says, grimacing. Somehow, he looks even more nervous than he had discussing his perhaps-dead sort-of-ex. In fairness, though, Nott had said his name like it was a declaration of war. Jester’s pretty sure she’d poop herself, if she were him. There’s a hint of feral cat behind Nott’s eyes that you ignore at your peril. “Hi, Nott. Nott. Hi. A coffee, please…?”

“Look who’s come crawling back!” crows Nott, leaning over the counter to get up in his face. The feral-cat-eyes are no better up close, Jester knows from experience, and winces sympathetically. “No more fancy farmer’s market coffee shop for you, huh, Mister Gluten-Free-Brownies? Did you get chased out by your boyfriend again? _Hah_.”

Fjord looks like he’s hoping the ground will open up and swallow him whole.

“You have a boyfriend, too?” gasps Jester, because this whole thing is just getting _more mysterious_ by the second. Like a detective novel, but in real life.

“Ex-boyfriend,” mumbles Fjord, looking miserable. “Look, can I– Nott, _please_ , can I just have a coffee? Any coffee. And then I’ll leave, I promise.”

Nott eyes him for a long moment, like he’s personally responsible for every ill that’s ever befallen her for as long as she’s lived. “Fjord said he wants a decaf Americano, Caduceus,” she calls out, without turning around. “With one pump of every type of syrup we own. And you can piss in it, too.” She smiles at Fjord, in a way that would be disarmingly sweet if her teeth were less pointed and her vibes less outright malicious. “That’ll be ten gold, asshole.”

“One flat white, coming up,” agrees Caduceus, mildly. Nott turns to hiss at him, through her teeth, and he just smiles, wide and a little sleepy. “And that’s six copper, Nott.”

Nott hisses again, for good measure. Then she hops off the chair she’d been standing on and immediately near-disappears behind the counter, clearly finished antagonising her least favourite customer. “Oh, of course, you know _his_ order, and how much _his_ drink costs,” she mutters to herself, poking Caduceus’ thigh as she shoulders past him. “Can’t remember what day of the week it is, but you…”

Her muttering trails off as she disappears through a bead curtain and into the back of the shop, out of sight.

“Thanks, Caduceus,” says Fjord, fervently, with the air of a drowning man who’s just been thrown a life ring. The tension that had settled in his shoulders when Nott had said his name drains away, and the smile he offers Caduceus is almost _fond_. “I appreciate it, I really do.”

“No worries. It does her good to not get her own way every so often,” says Caduceus, mildly, as though he’s blissfully unaware of the fact that he’s one of only two people in the entire world who would dare say _no_ to Nott. He hands over Fjord’s coffee, takes the proffered coins with a sleepy smile, and promptly fails to open the till five attempts in a row.

Jester’s just about to take pity on him and offer to do it herself – she’s seen Nott work the thing often enough she’s pretty sure she could – when the only other person in the world who would dare say _no_ to Nott emerges from the bead curtain.

“Well, Nott is in a bad mood today,” announces Caleb, to no one in particular, scraping his mess of lightly-unwashed copper hair up into a loose ponytail. He’s wearing, Jester notes delightedly, a Hello Kitty shirt, underneath his apron and worn brown cardigan.

“I didn’t mess up Fjord’s coffee order.” Caduceus’ nose twitches, and one corner of his mouth pulls up into a slow half-smile. Fjord’s eyes track the motion of his lips with just a little too much interest. “I didn’t pee in it, either.”

“Ah, _ja_. That would do it.” Caleb rubs a hand over his face, palm rasping over several days of stubble, and finally opens the till for Caduceus. “Right. Who’s next?”

“ _Heeeey Caaaayleb_ ,” Jester singsongs, pushing past Fjord and resting her elbow on the counter, propping her chin up on her fist. She doesn’t have to place an order – she’s a regular, at this point, and out the corner of her eye she can see Caduceus already working on her drink. “How are you? Good, good, _anyways_ , I’m about to go and help this poor man here see if his girlfriend is a corpse, so I was–”

“No discounts,” says Caleb, flatly. He holds out an expectant palm. “One silver and one copper, please, Jester.”

“Um. You are?” says Fjord, very nervously. “And don’t– you know, calling her a corpse is kind of morbid, actually. Perhaps, maybe don’t do that?”

Both Jester and Caleb ignore him.

Jester gives Caleb her best and biggest pout. It’s a pretty good pout, if she does say so herself. “Not even when I’m being _noble_ , and _heroic_ , and helping out a stranger in need?”

“Especially no discounts for friends of Fjord.” Jester’s not sure if Caleb’s ex-military or what, but he has this super spooky thing he can do where his eyes go dead and his face goes blank. He’s doing it now, in fact, hand still outstretched. It’s not quite as bad as the feral-cat-eyes, but it’s close – if only because it makes Jester desperately want to give him a hug. “Nott’s rules. One silver and _two_ copper, please.”

Jester sighs, and hands over the requisite coins, in exchange for the monstrosity of whipped cream and sugar that Caduceus has produced for her and a paper bag full of still-warm pastries. The extra copper goes in the tip jar by the till, with a muted _clink_. “You’re going to scare the customers if you keep doing that thing with your face, _Caleb_ ,” she informs him, as he opens the till. “Try smiling! Like this.” She grins at him, all teeth and tongue, her eyes crossed until she can see her own nose.

His lips twitch, a little. “See you tomorrow, Miss Lavorre,” he says, and Jester likes to think she can hear a note of fondness in his voice. It might just be exhaustion, though. It’s hard to tell, with Caleb.

“See you, Caleb!” she calls, hooking her free arm through Fjord’s and pulling him towards the doors without a backward glance. “Bye, Caduceus!”

“Goodbye. And hope to see you again soon, Fjord,” replies Caduceus, over the hiss and spit of the coffee machine. Fjord chokes on his own tongue and flushes, but Jester drags him out of the shop and into the morning sun before he has a chance to respond.

It’s remarkable, really, thinks Jester, that someone with so few social skills has managed to acquire so many boyfriends and girlfriends.

* * *

“I could kick the door down, you know,” says Jester, impatiently, when Fjord’s third round of knocking at his (ex?-)girlfriend’s door has produced no response. “Like, _preeeetty_ easily, this door looks super shitty. I think that would make this go a lot faster if you’re, like, worried.”

Fjord, his hand already raised to knock again, blinks. “You… could?” His eyes drop to her legs, briefly, and make a pitstop at her biceps on the way back up to her face. She flexes them – her dress is sleeveless, no fabric to hide the soft lines of muscle – and grins toothily when he flushes. “Please don’t do that,” he says, and bangs on the door once more. “I really don’t think she’d– Avantika? _Avantika_! It’s– it’s me, it’s Fjord, are you– I don’t know, alive?”

“I think she’d be charmed, you know?” muses Jester, into the silence that follows. “Like, you know, you’re sooooo worried about her you just _had_ to break her door down to come and rescue her. It’s romantic! I mean, she _obviously_ still likes you, if she’s texting you all the time…”

Sighing, Fjord shoves a hand into the pocket of his jacket and fishes out a key. “They’re not, um, _romantic_ , exactly. Actually, they’re more like threats. _Oh, Fi-ord, you will regret ze day you left, I will castrate you wiz a fish hook_ , _I ‘ave powers beyond your comprehension,_ you know, that sort of thing.”

“Your girlfriend has a sexy accent,” notes Jester, swishing the skirt of her dress back and forth impatiently.

She’s not sure why they’ve stood here with Fjord yelling like an idiot for ten minutes if he had a key all this time. Given how twitchy he already is, though, she’s not inclined to make a thing about it.

“Not really the point, and she’s my _ex,_ but thank you. I think.” The door clicks open, and Fjord exhales, the noise somewhere between relief and abject terror. “I… thought she would have changed the locks. Huh.” He goes to push the door open, and pauses, abruptly, fingers inches from making contact. “Oh god. If she’s, I don’t know, in the bath or something, and we’ve just broken in–”

It’s clearly time for someone else to take the initiative. Jester pushes him out the way, and shoves the door open with as loud and dramatic a clatter as she can manage. “–then she will have just heard us, and have time to put on a towel!” When that doesn’t ease the look of petrified indecision on Fjord’s face, she pats his arm. “And if she _actually_ tries to castrate you, then I will fight her off, because I have a black belt in judo and I’m _really_ strong. Don’t worry. You’re safe with me!”

“You’re a doctor _and_ you know judo?” says Fjord, faintly. He doesn’t sound entirely convinced, but he follows her as she steps over the doormat and into Avantika’s flat, so Jester’s counting that as a win.

The flat itself is pretty nice, but also pretty _weird_. There’s a beautiful coat hung up by the front door that Jester desperately wants to steal, but there’s also a framed pirate flag at the end of the hall, and a little ship in a bottle atop the shoe rack. The wooden floorboards are scratched, as though someone’s gone at them with a wire scrubbing brush, over and over. The walls aren’t much better, painted a dark and claustrophobic green, tiles of varying sizes in the shape of amber eyes scattered across their surface.

It gives the uncomfortably claustrophobic impression that they’re both being swallowed by some enormous beast as they move slowly, near-silently through the entrance hall.

There’s only one door open, so Jester heads for that one first, Fjord trailing behind her like an anxious puppy. The room they step into is a kitchen, small and cramped, decorated with the same weird pirate memorabilia and eyes as the hallway, and Jester wrinkles her nose in distaste.

“You used to _date_ her?” Jester whispers loudly, breaking the eerie silence of the flat.

“She seemed fairly reasonable when I met her!” Fjord whispers back, sounding almost apologetic for his poor taste in women. “There was this band we both liked, we met at a concert, you know how it goes. But the band got kind of weird, I dropped out of the fandom, she didn’t– And then we broke up. I think the band is technically a cult now? Maybe? Anyway.”

“Your girlfriend’s in a _cult_?” says Jester, eyes wide. “Oh shit, that’s like, _super_ cool. I mean, me too, but still.”

“I. What?” Fjord looks a little like she’s just struck him around the head with a frying pan, for some reason.

Jester gasps. “Oh my _gosh_ , Fjord, maybe we’re in the _same_ cult! What’s your spooky girlfriend’s cult called?!”

“You. I. Um.” He does his best fish impression at her for several seconds, mouth opening and closing without anything terribly intelligible coming out. “Well, the band was called U’kotoa, so I assume–”

“ _U’kotoa…_ ” breathes Jester, as creepily as she can manage, making the word echo menacingly in the empty kitchen. “Cool cult name! Not as cool as _my_ cult, you know, but still _pretty_ cool.”

Fjord opens the fridge, peers inside it – as though Avantika might be hiding amongst the pickles – and then closes it again with a heavy sigh. “Dare I ask what your cult’s called?” he says, heavily, eyes raking over the kitchen. It’s pretty clear Avantika’s not in here, but he seems reluctant to go check any of the other rooms.

Jester doesn’t blame him. This place is creepy enough without them having to open any of its ominously shut doors.

“We’re followers of the Traveller, of course!” she says, brightly, to distract herself from the creeping sense of unease at the back of her neck. Like she’s being watched. Which is ridiculous, of course, since it’s only her and Fjord in here. “Didn’t you see my _super cool_ necklace?” She tugs at the chain around her neck, the small golden door at the end of it flashing as it jiggles.

“Ah. Yes.” Fjord eyes it warily, as though it might bite. “Very… cool.”

He doesn’t sound very sincere, but Jester lets it slide.

“Anyways,” she says, into the awkward silence that fills the room in the aftermath of their little conversation, “I think we should, um, probably go check… somewhere else… that is not here, you know? Like, it’s _pretty_ obvious she isn’t in here, so…”

“Right,” says Fjord, heavily, with such a lack of enthusiasm you’d think she’d asked him to put his hand in a blender. “Yeah, we probably should. I’ll check the bedroom, you take the living room, and then let’s get out of here.”

“Good plan!” agrees Jester, because this place is super creepy and she’s almost regretting agreeing to come. Fjord hadn’t mentioned anything about tonnes and tonnes of eyeballs and a shitty cult at Nott’s, which she thinks is kind of unfair of him.

They split up in the hallway, Fjord pointing her to one closed door and taking the other for himself. Out of the kitchen, they’re back to silence by some unspoken agreement, as though talking in this place might awaken something.

Jester takes a deep breath, steels herself, and opens the door.

The living room is exactly as creepy as the rest of the house, with dark green walls, a dark green carpet as the flooring, and even a dark green _ceiling_. It makes the whole place feel a little like a stomach, pressing in. It’s sparsely furnished, other than the pervasive eyes-and-pirate decor that dominates the walls here just as much as it had in the hall and kitchen. There’s just a coffee table, a TV that looks to be second-hand and seldom used, and a well-worn couch in dark, velveteen emerald.

And there, on the couch, is…

Well. Jester has to assume it’s Avantika, though she’s never met the woman before. She’s sprawled across the cushions, a mane of copper-red hair spread out behind her, eyes half-closed and fingers lax.

She’s also very, very dead.

“Nothing in the bathroom,” calls Fjord, from across the hall. “How’s the– Jester?” He must see something in the line of her back, the set of her shoulders, because the sound of his footsteps behind her turns from a walk to a run, before stuttering to a stop directly behind her.

“I think,” says Jester, staring at the body on the couch, “that maybe we should. You know. Call an ambulance? And probably the police. Because she _for sure_ looks like she’s dead. Like. _Really_ dead.”

Fjord swallows, hard. “Yeah,” he says, a little hoarsely. “Yeah, I think we probably should.”

* * *

“I have got to be honest with you, officer, I am like, not involved in this _at all_ ,” says Jester, earnestly. She turns her charm up to maximum, all wide eyes and pouty lips and as much but-I-wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly girlish sweetness as she can muster. Officer Bryce doesn’t need to know about her black belt in judo, or the switchblade in her backpack that’s disguised as a mascara wand. That would probably just complicate things. “You see, I was just at the coffee shop this morning, and I met this guy, and he said he was worried his girlfriend was dead, because she wasn’t sending him death threats any more, so _I_ said I would come to help him because I’m _practically_ – because I’m very good in a crisis, you know?”

 _First year of pre-med_ may not, she thinks, be the same thing as _practically a doctor_ in the eyes of the law. Perhaps best to omit that bit.

“So you’ve never met this man before this morning?” asks Officer Bryce, and Jester winces a little internally, because that’s _definitely_ scepticism in their voice there. Or perhaps just exhaustion. Maybe both. She’s well aware of her ability to produce a multiplicity of emotions in her conversational partners. “Or the deceased?”

“That’s right! I am _completely_ innocent in literally _all_ of this.”

“…Death threats, you say?” they continue, one eyebrow raised, scribbling something in their little notepad. Jester cranes her head in an attempt to see, but they keep angling it away from her, and their handwriting is _atrocious_ besides.

“Oh, yes.” Jester nods, sagely. Fjord keeps shooting pleading glances at her, from over where he’s being interrogated by the other officer who turned up, but she can’t think why. “He said she would text him every day, threatening to like, _castrate_ him, and all sorts of stuff, and– oh! And she was in a _cult_ , not like, a _cool_ cult, but like some weird band-fandom-gone-wrong one, called _U’kotoa_ … and Fjord nearly ended up in it too, didn’t you, Fjord?”

Fjord gives her one last _begging_ glance, like he’s on the verge of tears.

“Ma’am,” says Officer Bryce, very tiredly, “I think you’re going to need to come with us to the station. There are some questions we’d like to ask you.”

The only upside of the whole situation, thinks Jester, as Bryce escorts her to one of the police cars outside, is that they didn’t arrest her. Mama would be _so_ disappointed if she got arrested, and had to be bailed out, and–

In her peripheral vision, she watches a handcuffed and protesting and _very definitely arrested_ Fjord get bundled into another police car, and winces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was written to "[She Wants Me Dead](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHccClTAdzc)" by Cazette vs. AronChupa.
> 
> as always, find me @sparxwrites on tumblr or @sparxwriting on twitter.


	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strangest day of Jester’s life so far, second day in a row, starts with a free coffee from _Nott A Coffee Shop_.

The strangest day of Jester’s life so far, second day in a row, starts with a free coffee from _Nott A Coffee Shop_.

“On the house,” says Caduceus, with a sleepy sort of smile, handing over her usual whipped-cream-with-added-sugar confection. “Nott’s orders. Actually, she said she’d like a word with you, if you don’t mind waiting for just a second…?”

There’s flour in one of his bright pink eyebrows, and he smells of coffee and fresh-baked pastries and a _lot_ of weed. There’s also a clear plastic takeaway cup by his elbow, labelled BEE NO WATER in clumsy marker, with a wasp inside. So it’s clearly a regular Yulisen morning at the shop, business as usual – other than the free drink. Jester’s tried everything short of offering sexual favours in an attempt to get a free drink at Nott’s over the past six months, and nothing has ever worked. _Ever_.

Which makes the sudden freebie, _on Nott’s orders_ nonetheless, deeply suspect.

“…Suuuuure?” says Jester, hesitantly, before realising that doesn’t sound very assertive. “I mean. Yes! Of _course_. I can wait.” She smiles at Caduceus, extra sweetly, and leans one hip against the counter. “Thank you for the drink, Caduceus!”

“No problem.” He smiles back at her, eyes crinkling warmly, and wanders off through the beaded curtain into the back of the shop.

Jester slurps at her blasphemous coffee for a long moment, staring around the shop in an attempt to find something to occupy her attention that _isn’t_ the trapped wasp on the counter. Eventually, though, and against her better judgement, her curiosity gets the better of her. “So– what is _up_ with the bee cup?”

Caleb looks up from the section of counter he’s wiping down, resignation on his face. “Ah, well, you know,” he says, not quite meeting her eyes. “Some days you are the bee, some days you are the cup…”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a wasp,” Jester points out, because she _doesn’t_ know, actually, and isn’t entirely sure she wants to. Caleb’s great and all, but she’s pretty sure he’s also a little bit crazy, and that he was a serial killer before he worked in a coffee shop, or maybe some kind of academic, and– well. All in all, it’s usually best not to ask him to clarify.

“ _Ja_.” Caleb goes back to wiping down the counter. “Do not tell Caduceus, though, or you will break his heart.”

“Oh, absolutely, I would _never_ ,” replies Jester seriously, her free hand making a little cross over her chest. It would take a truly cruel soul to deliberately upset Caduceus, and though Jester fancies herself something of a prankster, she likes to think she doesn’t have a malicious bone in her body. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Caleb hums softly to himself, scrubbing at a particularly stubborn sticky spot with his rag. “You shouldn’t hope to die,” he says, oddly intense, without looking up. “You are young, with so much of your life ahead of you. You should be hoping to live, instead.”

Which is exactly why Jester tries not to ask him for clarifications. Super cryptic, kind of dark, impossible to tell whether he’s joking… Classic Caleb, really.

She can’t think of anything to say in response, and so the two of them stand in something like companionable silence for a while, awaiting the arrival of the café proprietor herself – which is heralded, as usual, by loud volumes at high pitch.

“ _Why_ ,” screeches Nott, upon entering the shop proper, “is there a _wasp_ in a _cup_ on the _counter_? Caduceus. _Again_?”

“Again?” asks Jester, curiously, licking the last of the whipped cream from the rim of her cup. Behind the counter, Caleb makes a frantic chopping motion in her direction that she assumes means _shut up_. Not that it matters, though; Nott isn’t paying attention to her, instead staring with her hands on her hips through the curtain into the back of the shop.

“It’s our new shop mascot!” replies Caduceus, from somewhere behind the curtain. “The café bee. He’s just chilling out, it’s fine.”

Nott drags an irritable hand through her hair. “It’s not _fine_ , Caduceus!” she calls. She marches over to the counter, clambers up onto the small stool kept behind it that allows her to see over, and grabs the cup. “I told you what was going to happen if you put weird shit in cups on the counter again! I _told you_!”

“Hey– there’s no need to– I’ll let him go outside, Nott, now wait just a moment.” Caduceus sounds more than a little worried as he pokes his head out through the bead curtain. There’s a fresh streak of flour in his beard, and a little wrinkle between his unnaturally pink eyebrows.

But Nott’s shaking the cup like it’s some kind of cocktail shaker, teeth bared in an expression of terrifying concentration. “Nope! You were warned!” she announces. “This is for your own good, Caduceus. _No wasps_.”

In one swift movement, she removes the lid from the cup, lifts it to her lips, and drinks. Jester watches – torn between a sort of horrified fascination and sheer awe – as she chews for a second, and swallows.

Caduceus’s face crumples, slowly, and he disappears back behind the curtain – presumably to mourn the loss of his little bee buddy. Caleb isn’t even watching, still just scrubbing dedicatedly at the same patch of counter with the same piece of rag.

“So,” says Nott, loudly and without preamble, in the aftermath of her swift and efficient wasp disposal. “Caduceus said that you got Fjord arrested yesterday.”

“I mean, _well_ , I didn’t _get_ him arrested,” Jester says, once she’s recovered from that particular one-two punch of a power move. She picks her words with an uncharacteristic amount of care. There are two tables occupied and, given the usual clientele of Nott’s, she’s not _super_ eager to be loudly identified as some kind of snitch. “But he _did_ get arrested, and I _was_ there, so I guess, _teeeechnically_ …”

Nott looks at her for a long, long moment. Then her face splits into a slow, delighted grin. It’s a little bit alarming – Jester’s seen her smile before, but never _grin_. It makes her teeth look even sharper than usual. “Are you looking for a job?”

“Yes!” blurts Jester, and then adds, “But only weekends, part time. And my momma says no porn at _least_ until I get my medical degree.” It’s probably not relevant, given this is a coffee shop and all, but given that it’s _Nott A Coffee Shop_ specifically it seems worth saying.

Nott cackles delightedly. “Smart woman, your mom,” she says. “Right! Come on up to my office, then, and we’ll get the paperwork sorted. Welcome to _Nott a Coffee Shop_ , kiddo.”

* * *

Nott’s office, as it turns out, is the kitchen in her flat above the shop. It’s surprisingly homey – the shelves are filled with bottles and jars and knick-knacks, the pans hung on hooks above the stove look well-used, and there’s a faint smell of recent cooking in the air. The kitchen table Jester is ushered to sit at is large and sturdy, made of oak, and battle-scarred with knife-marks, burns, and the odd pen-mark. One small portion seems to have been attacked enthusiastically enough with felt tip and glitter glue that no amount of scrubbing could save it.

“One moment!” calls Nott, as she digs through an open drawer in one of the room’s many cabinets. “Just trying to find the damn– _shit_ , where did the contracts–”

Jester tunes out the swearing and sounds of frantic drawer-rummaging in favour of snooping around the kitchen some more. There’s a large jar of buttons on one of the shelves, alongside the pasta and the rice. A few discarded markers on the floor, a neat stack of last night’s unwashed dishes by the sink, what looks like a _bunsen burner_ in one corner of the counter for some reason– and, abruptly and most interestingly of all, a _man_. Short, with tousled hair and thick glasses, still wearing his dressing gown, and carrying an empty mug as he ambles into the room.

A _mystery_. Jester loves mysteries.

“Hello!” she says, loudly and politely. “I’m Jester! Nice to meet you.”

The man doesn’t exactly jump, but he does startle a little, before pushing his glasses further up his nose with one finger. “Oh! Um, hi, nice to meet you. I’m Yeza, I don’t think we’ve– why, exactly, are you in my kitchen? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Nott extricates herself from the drawer she’d been buried up to the shoulder in, cursing loudly and gripping a sheaf of papers. “Hey honey!” she says, her face softening into the closest approximation of fondness Jester’s ever seen on it. Even _more_ mysterious. She usually reserves that expression for Caleb. “Yeza, this is Jester, she’s gonna be a new part-time hire in the shop. Jester, this is Yeza, my husband.”

“Oh! Your _husband_ ,” says Jester, trying not to sound too surprised and failing utterly. “Okay! Nice to meet you, Mr. Nott.”

Nott’s eyes narrow. “You sound surprised.”

“Oh, well, it’s just that… I wasn’t sure if you and Caleb were married, you know? Because… I don’t know, really. I guess I just kind of assumed that you might be, a little bit? But your husband seems like he is _lovely_ , though–”

“ _Married_?” screeches Nott, as though Jester has delivered her a mortal insult. “To _Caleb_? I have a _husband_ and a _beautiful son_ , thank you very much! Caleb and I are not _married_. And besides, Caleb is my _boy_. …But we _are_ fucking, though,” she adds, before Jester can begin apologising. “Me and Caleb, I mean. Like _bunnies_.”

Jester wonders, faintly, as Nott cackles like a madwoman, whether this is how people feel around her most of the time – confused, overwhelmed, and permanently wrong-footed. She’s not sure she likes it.

Yeza sighs, quietly, and flicks the kettle on.

“I am _very_ happy for the both of you,” says Jester, when Nott’s laughter tapers off, because that seems the safest response. “So– you must be the guy that my dad does business with, then?” she says, turning to Yeza. Which is, honestly, kind of hilarious – she’d been super willing to believe Caleb might be Nott’s husband because Caleb _looked_ like the kind of guy who would maybe have a meth lab or something in the basement. This slipper-wearing, five-foot-and-change dad-figure very much does _not_. “Like, that is pretty much the _whole_ reason I started coming to your coffee shop, you know, because my dad mentioned it. He said you were a _really_ good chemist, by the way, you are, like, his _favourite_ supplier.”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees. The kettle clicks loudly off the boil, but neither Nott nor Yeza pays it any attention.

“Who said anything about supplying drugs?” asks Nott, sharply, her eyes narrowed. “No drugs here. No siree. Don’t know what you’re talking about. Yeza owns a _perfectly legitimate_ chemist’s shop, _thank you very much_ , nothing illegal about that.”

Jester considers mentioning Caduceus, downstairs – who has never _not_ smelled of weed for as long as she’s known him, regardless of the hour she’s come into the coffee shop – but decides that that particular argument is not even remotely worth it. She also considers mentioning that she never said anything about supplying _drugs_ , per se, and decides likewise.

“Oh, I’m not going to tell on you or anything!” she says instead, reassuringly. When neither Nott nor Yeza look very reassured, she adds, “Like I said, my dad buys, like, a _lot_ of your stuff. Like, _really_ a lot. You know? The Gentleman? He said he was like, your _best_ customer. And also that your coffee was very good, which it _really_ is, I have not found _anywhere_ else that will give me four espresso shots in one drink.”

Yeza goes sheet white, which is really kind of the opposite of what Jester had hoped would happen.

“You want to hire _The_ _Gentleman’s daughter_ to work in our coffee shop?” he wheezes at Nott, wide-eyed. “Are you– Veth, sweetheart, I love you, but are you _insane_?”

Nott blinks at Yeza, and then at Jester, and then back to Yeza. “I didn’t know!” she hisses, as though Jester isn’t _right there_ and capable of hearing every word she says. “She’s just a regular, and she did me a favour getting that little _prick_ Fjord picked up by the cops, and we need a little weekend help, and– it wasn’t like she _announced_ –”

“Ahem!” Jester clears her throat, loudly. Both pairs of eyes snap to her, one wide and one wary. She smiles as sweetly and innocently as she can – and she is _good_ at sweet and innocent – and shakes the sheaf of papers that Nott had left lying on the table. “I am, like, _right here_ , you know, so! Maybe you could stop arguing over my dad and let me know where to sign?”

* * *

It takes a good forty minutes to get the contract signed, in the end – primarily because Yeza insists on adding six clauses to the standard agreement for good measure, and _also_ on calling her dad. Which is kind of funny, really. She’s _pretty_ sure she knows _exactly_ what her dad is going to say to him.

Jester listens to Yeza’s end of the phone conversation with no small amount of glee, and a modicum of pity for the man. When Yeza hangs up, it’s with the expression of someone that’s been well and truly told off, in the most silky-smooth and patronising way possible. Jester feels vindicated, though she tries not to let it show on her face.

They let her sign the contract without any fuss, after that.

Yeza disappears afterwards with some comment about paperwork and headaches, empty cup still in hand and boiled kettle unused. Anything to do with The Gentleman in his professional guise, in Jester’s experience, tends to end in paperwork and headaches, so that seems super fair.

“Right!” announces Nott, as though to clear the air. “Now _that’s_ out the way, let me introduce you to your new coworkers and the shop. You know most of it already, but.” She flaps a dismissive hand. “Standard practice, blah, blah, blah. Yeza thinks we should have ‘procedures’ for ‘new employees’, which is stupid, but. Whatever!”

Jester can only follow as Nott heads out of the kitchen, trotting down the stairs that connect hers and Yeza’s flat to the shop. “So you’re not going to be working in the bakery, but I’ll show it to you anyway,” Nottsays, as they go. “So you know what’s in there, and because that’s where Caduceus will be. If he’s not out on break.” She pauses and sniffs, dismissively. “Which he does more than working, really. You just can’t get the employees nowadays, huh…”

She continues in that vein, mumbled ranting that Jester’s pretty sure isn’t intended to really be listened to, all the way through the door into the bakery. Caduceus is indeed there, mixing various wet ingredients for what looks to be the beginnings of brioche dough into a bowl. As Jester watches, he carefully tips a little flour in and begins stirring, brow furrowed in concentration, before looking up at the sound of Nott slamming the door.

“Oh! Miss Jester,” he says, warmly, smiling the kind of smile that makes his eyes crinkle a little at Jester and entirely ignoring Nott. “How’d it go?” He brushes a lock of hair out his face, and gets a bit of dough smeared into it. Jester winces at the thought of how unpleasant that’s going to be when it dries. “She didn’t chew you out or anything, huh? …Unlike my bee,” he mumbles, under his breath.

“I am your _boss_ , Caduceus!” snaps Nott, hands on her hips. Her head barely comes up past his waist, but the effect is fairly alarming nonetheless. “Show some respect!”

Caduceus shakes his head slowly. “If you fire me, you’ll have no one else that’s allowed to make coffee,” he says, placid and unconcerned. He adds flour gradually to the bowl, tongue between his teeth as he stirs slowly with steady hands, until the brioche dough begins to thicken.

“Well, soon I _will_ , because _Jester_ here has just been hired!” announces Nott, slapping Jester on the back with one sharp-nailed hand. Jester does her best not to wince, but it’s a near thing. “So watch it, mister.”

“Oh!” says Caduceus, his face slipping into a wide, sleepy smile. “Welcome to the team, Miss Jester! It’ll be great to have you. When do you start?”

“Tomorrow evening,” interrupts Nott, as Jester opens her mouth. “And I’m going to be busy with… things, so I’ll be counting on you to show her the ropes, Deucey! Gods help us all.”

Jester rather suspects _things_ can be translated as _Caleb_ , and is torn between a desperate need to know more and a desperate desire to know _absolutely nothing_ about Nott’s sex life. In the end, she settles with keeping her mouth shut, and matching Caduceus’s smile with her own blinding grin. “I’m sure you’re gonna be a _great_ teacher, Caduceus!” she says. “And I cannot _wait_ to be working with you.”

“Same to you, Miss Jester.” Caduceus reaches up to– Jester _presumes_ the motion is intended to be a hat-tip, but given he’s not wearing a hat, it’s a little hard to tell. After a moment of fumbling in thin air, he turns it into a lazy salute instead, smearing yet more flour and wet dough across his forehead and hairline. “See you tomorrow.”

Nott huffs, and mutters something _very_ unprofessional under her breath as she pushes through the bead curtain that leads to the front of the shop, whisking Jester away before she can reply.

“So, Caduceus works a split shift, mostly,” she explains, as they go. “Does the baking in the morning when I’m out front, and is a barista in the evening when I’m off. If you’re on shift with him and he disappears for twenty minutes, he’s probably on a smoke break and forgot he’s at work, so you’re welcome to yell at him. And do _not_ , under _any circumstances_ , eat any brownies he offers you.” She pauses. “Don’t eat any brownies he offers you on company time,” she amends. “Do whatever the fuck you want on your own time, I don’t really give a shit.”

The front of the shop is pretty dead, and good thing too, because Nott hasn’t bothered to keep her voice down. As usual. “Mmhm!” says Jester, doing her best to look attentive and like a model employee. Which is difficult, because she doesn’t have much reference for what _model employee_ looks like, other than her mama’s girls. Who, given she’s in a coffee shop, she probably should _not_ be emulating. “Baker, barista, yelling is okay, no brownies. Got it.”

“Caduceus is barista when I’m off,” continues Nott, raising her voice, “because _Caleb Widogast is not allowed to touch the coffee machine under any circumstances_.”

Caleb, who had very much been touching the coffee machine, jumps slightly. “I was cleaning!” he protests, waving the damp rag in his hand. “Since there are no customers, and this is what you pay me for, _ja_?” He spots Jester behind Nott, and… doesn’t exactly smile, but looks a little less depressed around the eyes, which is kind of the same thing as far as Caleb is concerned. “Ah, Miss Lavorre. Nott didn’t murder you and hide the body then, hmm?”

That ranks pretty highly among the strangest and most ominous things Caleb has ever said to her – and he’s said _a lot_ of _really_ weird and ominous things to her – so Jester immediately resolves to never think about it ever again. “Why are you not allowed to make coffee?” she asks, which is probably _nosy detective_ behaviour rather than _model employee_ behaviour, but is also the only thing she can even think of to say right now.

“I… improved the previous coffee machine,” says Caleb, a little stiffly, looking at Nott with something like reproach. “Nott did not approve.”

“You _broke_ it! Do you have _any_ idea how much those things cost? _A lot_ , Caleb. A lot!”

“I gave it Bluetooth and internet connectivity, so you could monitor it and operate it remotely.” Caleb is _definitely_ sulking now, and Jester watches the argument, entranced. This is the closest to normal human emotion she’s ever seen in Caleb, and it’s _fascinating_.

“It’s a _coffee machine_!” shrieks Nott, throwing her hands up in the air. “It needs to _make coffee_ , not– play fucking _video games_ , or any of that–”

“It was only _one_ video game,” mutters Caleb, scowling. “And it could pick up the local weather station, too, which–”

“The coffee it made tasted like ass after you were done with it,” says Nott, a note of finality in her voice. “When it even _made_ coffee, which only happened when Caduceus spent half an hour seducing it, and sometimes not even then. And I am _not_ paying my employees to _seduce coffee machines_. So we had to buy a new one, and now Caleb is _not allowed to touch it_. Not even for cleaning. Do you understand, Caleb?”

Caleb mutters something under his breath in a language Jester doesn’t know, but suspects is Zemnian, and also suspects is fairly rude. Nott gives him the middle finger, and makes aggressive eye contact until he steps, slowly, away from the coffee machine.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Nott continues, as though nothing had happened. “We’ll send you on a barista training course or something in a month or two, or whatever, if you’re even still here after that long. Caduceus’ll teach you a bit in the meantime, but your job is to take orders and work the till, okay? No making coffee, because if it’s shit you’ll ruin our reputation. Capiche?”

Jester is, frankly, unsure if _Nott A Coffee Shop_ even has a reputation, beyond ‘shady as hell’, and she’s not sure that one or two badly-made coffees is going to ruin that. But she says, “Capiche,” solemnly, anyway, and Nott looks satisfied enough with that that she decides not to add anything else.

“Excellent!” Nott claps her hands together, grinning widely and treating Jester to a front-row view of the truly alarming state of her teeth. “In which case, I expect you in tomorrow, at six sharp, for the evening shift with Caduceus. Welcome to the team!”

“I am _delighted_ to be joining,” says Jester, which might be the most sincere thing she’s said since she stepped out of Nott’s kitchen. “And I _promise_ I am going to do a _reeeeeeally good_ job, and be, like, _such_ a good worker. You are _not_ going to regret hiring me.”

Nott looks at her for a long moment. “Good,” she says, “because there’s a reason we don’t usually hire regulars.”

“It’s because they’re shit,” calls Caleb, from where he’s gone back to wiping down a counter that really doesn’t even need any more wiping but seems to be getting it regardless. “And because sometimes they try to call the police.”

“What he said,” agrees Nott. Across the shop, the bell above the door chimes, and a small gaggle of young men step through, beelining for the counter. “Another rule, actually– no fucking calling the cops. You call me instead.” Her eyes linger, and Jester gets the uncomfortable feeling of being _seen_ for a long, long second. “Now. Fuck off, there’s customers. Remember– tomorrow, six sharp.”

Jester laughs, and bobs a hasty curtsey, before scooting out from behind the counter. “Tomorrow, yes!” she calls back, as she skips around the new customers and over to the door. “See you then! Bye Caleb! Bye Nott! And thanks for the free coffee, it was really nice!”

“Don’t get used to it!” Nott yells after her, indignant, but Jester is already out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, caleb did make doom run on a coffee machine. nott just doesn't appreciate his unique genius. / this chapter was written to "[House Arrest](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-3bC2MT9xw)" by Sofi Tukker x Gorgon City.
> 
> as always, find me @sparxwrites on tumblr or @sparxwriting on twitter.


	3. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The strangest day of Jester's life so far, _third_ day in a row, starts off ominously normal. She wakes up, takes a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast with her mama… It's nice. Peaceful. Da'leysen is always a lazy day in the Lavorre household, a family day. Her shift isn't until six, so she has _all day_ to eat pastries and paint. It's blissful.
> 
> It's when she arrives at _Nott A Coffee Shop_ to begin her first, and apparently _solo_ , shift that the shit hits the fan.

The strangest day of Jester’s life so far, _third_ day in a row, starts off ominously normal. She wakes up, takes a shower, gets dressed, eats breakfast with her mama… It’s nice. Peaceful. Da’leysen is always a lazy day in the Lavorre household, a family day. Her shift isn’t until six, so she has _all day_ to eat pastries and paint. It’s blissful.

It’s when she arrives at _Nott A Coffee Shop_ to begin her first, and apparently _solo_ , shift that the shit hits the fan.

Part of the issue is, it’s not supposed to be a solo shift. She knows how to work the till, sure, but everything else is a mystery to her. Including the coffee machine. _Especially_ the coffee machine, which is an issue, really, given she’s now working a solo shift _in a coffee shop_.

Caduceus, who _does_ know how to work the coffee machine, was supposed to be on shift with her. About five minutes after she clocked in, though, he’d disappeared out the back – for a ‘quick break’, he’d said.

It’s been over an hour.

Jester’s not gone to check on him, despite Nott’s permission to go yell at him if he disappears for longer than twenty minutes. There’s the smell of weed drifting through the beaded curtain, thick and sweet. She can put two and two together, and indeed _has_ put two and two together, and come up with _it’s probably best to just leave him be._ Especially given The Bee Incident that happened yesterday. She’s a little worried he might still be grieving, and the thought of having to deal with a sad Caduceus all shift is enough to make her heart hurt.

So now it’s just her, Jester, alone in a coffee shop.

Well, not quite alone – there are two guys at a corner table. One looks for all the world like an old, grizzled sailor, puffing on a pipe and staring absently out the window. The other, fresh-faced and twitchy, keeps looking over at Jester, and then over at the door, and then back again.

Neither of them have ordered anything in the hour she’s been there, though the grizzled sailor guy seems to be nursing a cup of… something.

In the absence of anything better to do, she starts wondering what they’re waiting for. Perhaps grizzled sailor man is _actually_ a sailor, or perhaps they both are, and perhaps they’re _pirates_ , and when they’re not in weird, criminal, out-of-the-way coffee shops they sail the high seas on a stolen ship, and–

Her thoughts continue on in this vein for some time, as the coffee machine hisses and spits behind her and absolutely nothing else happens. It’s a pretty boring start to the shift, as far as shifts go, if she’s being honest. But at least no one’s asked her to make coffee

She’s gotten deep enough into daydreaming about Grizzled Sailor Man and his Baby-Faced Sidekick that, when someone _finally_ comes, it takes her a moment to actually register the ringing of the bell above the door. When she looks up from her napkin doodle – a pirate ship, which she has yet to find an appropriately dirty name for, being bitten in half by a giant turtle that’s also breathing fire, complete with various tragic deaths for its stick-man crew – she can hardly believe her eyes.

“Oh hey, Fjord!” cries Jester, loud enough to turn the heads of the only two other people currently in the coffee shop at this hour. “You got out of prison! I’m really glad, I was worried they were going to arrest you, like, for _real_.”

Fjord freezes. Jester imagines deer look similar, right before they’re hit by the speeding car behind those dazzling headlights.

She waves a hand in enthusiastic greeting, beckoning him in. “It’s me! Jester! From the flat, you know?” she adds, just in case he’s forgotten about her from the trauma of seeing his ex-girlfriend-maybe-probably-whatever dead on a couch and then getting arrested immediately after.

“Yes, I… remember you,” says Fjord, with a smile that honestly looks more like a grimace than anything else. “So, you– what, have a job here, now?” he adds, a little weakly, looking around as though someone might emerge from the shadows to offer him moral support in what is _clearly_ a very challenging conversation for him.

Given Caduceus is currently missing-presumed-passed-out in the back, no one does.

“Oh, yeah, Nott gave me a job here! I _think_ as a thank you for getting you arrested, which, I am _not_ going to lie, is a _bit_ strange, but hey! Free job. You know, it’s kind of weird that the first thing you do after getting out of prison is visit a coffee shop where the owner hates you,” points out Jester, as she busies herself with the coffee machine and tries to look like she knows what she’s doing. Fjord hasn’t ordered a coffee yet, but on the basis that she has no idea what she’s doing anyway, she figures that’s not a big deal.

“I mean. _You_ don’t hate me…?” says Fjord, but it sounds more like a question than a statement.

“Of course I do not! But you didn’t know I was going to be here.”

Fjord sighs, and drags a hand through his hair. “Look, the only other independent coffee shop in the whole damn area is, uh. _Off-limits_. So it’s here or Starbucks, and their coffee tastes like burnt cat piss, so…” He shrugs one helpless shoulder. “Nott’s it is! I try to only come in when Caduceus is on shift, usually– where is he, by the way? I’m _sure_ this is his evening shift.”

“Oh, he went for a break, like, a _smoke break_ , you know, and that was like an hour ago,” says Jester, supremely unconcerned. “So I guess he’s probably sleep or something. Or dead. But probably just asleep. Why’s _The Withered Bird_ off limits?”

She’s not very familiar with _Nott A Coffee Shop_ ’s competition, in all honesty. She did go there, once, when Nott’s was closed for ‘remodelling’ – there’d been a brawl, and they’d needed to replace the counter, and also two windows, and _also_ bail Nott out – and it had been… weird. There’d been an unsettling lack of grime, and of shady people lurking in corner tables. Their barista had known how to work the till.

Plus, they’d refused to put four shots of espresso and six pumps of caramel in her drink, so it was clearly staffed by cowards. She’d never gone back.

Fjord squirms for a moment, before finally breaking under Jester’s prolonged gaze. “My ex– Sabien, not, uh, Avantika, or this wouldn’t… be an issue any more, I guess– goes there. And I’m not terribly keen on the idea of running into him, so. _Nott_ ’s it is, I suppose.”

“Oh my _gosh_ , how many exes do you _have_?” asks Jester, delightedly, as she belatedly remembers to turn the coffee machine’s flow off. It leaves her with a half-cup of what smells like pretty burnt coffee, so she dumps two pumps off hazelnut syrup into it, tops the rest up with milk, and hopes for the best. “It sounds like _so many_ , how do you keep track of them all?!”

“I’ve mentioned _two_ , that’s not that– Look, is this coffee free, at least?” asks Fjord, looking exhausted. “As, you know, an apology for nearly getting me charged with murder?”

“No free coffees at _Nott’s_!” says Jester, cheerily, setting Fjord’s coffee down on the counter. It looks kind of pale and grey, and feels _very_ lukewarm, but she’s pretty proud of it nonetheless. Her first coffee, and she didn’t even set anything on fire. Or make the coffee green, or rancid-smelling, or poisonous. …She’s _pretty_ sure it’s not poisonous, anyways. “ _Especially_ for friends of Fjord. That will be six coppers, please!”

Fjord sighs, and drags a hand through his cropped hair. “I didn’t even tell you my order, you know,” he mutters, under his breath, but he hands over the requisite coins regardless.

Jester takes them, and deposits them in the till – which opens for her on the first try, take _that_ , Caduceus, she’s practically a professional already – and offers him a winning smile. “It doesn’t matter what you order, because I have pretty much _no idea_ how to work, like, _any_ of this, so! We have one drink for sale this evening, and it is a _mystery beverage_. Ooooo! Exciting! Thank you for your patronage!” she chirps. “Here’s your coffee.”

She pushes the takeaway coffee cup across the counter towards Fjord. He eyes the faintly grey liquid inside it with a decidedly dubious expression, and picks it up gingerly, as though it might leap out of the cup and bite him.

Jester thinks she would probably feel offended, if she weren’t super bored and also gleefully making all this up as she goes along. This whole shift has felt like a waiting game, so far, killing time until something _interesting_ happens.

Perhaps Fjord getting bitten by coffee is the interesting thing, however improbable that might be. All things are possible through the Traveller, after all.

“Thank you for the, uh, _interesting_ coffee, and for not _actually_ getting me charged with murder, I guess,” he says, and Jester thinks he _might_ be being sarcastic, but that’s fine. He’s had a long day, he’s allowed a little sarcasm. as a treat. “I’d say I hope we never meet again, but, given you work here now…” He winces. “Hopefully the police aren’t involved next time, at least.”

Jester salutes him jauntily, with two fingers to her forehead and a grin on her lips. “Enjoy the coffee!” she says. “And, um, come back soon? Is that what you’re supposed to say at coffee shops? They didn’t really give me any training or anything, so, you know…”

Fjord just huffs out an amused breath, salutes her right back with a reluctant-looking smile, and turns to leave.

On his way to the door, he pauses, and inclines his head towards the two men at the table. “Orly,” he says, politely, accent thickening into something like a drawl, to Jester’s great delight.

“Cap’n,” says the old man, with a tip of his cap. He’s got an odd accent Jester can’t quite place, and stutters over the two syllables of the word such that _cap’n_ is drawn out over several seconds. He puffs on his pipe for a second, sending a cloud of smoke towards the ceiling. “Mmm- Marius,” he says, like a warning, looking over at the fresh-faced twitchy guy he’s sharing a table with.

“Oh! Uh, Captain?” says Marius, hesitantly, with a little bob of his head.

Fjord rolls his eyes. “You killed anyone yet, Marius?” he asks, looking the other man over with a critical eye. Then he takes a sip of his coffee, and rather ruins the whole aloof-and-in-charge effect by only barely keeping himself from gagging.

Marius blinks. “Um. No? Captain?”

“Why not?!” calls Jester, from the counter – and is rewarded with a chuckle from Orly, and a crooked grin from Fjord as he turns his back on a stuttering Marius and walks out the door.

* * *

It’s nearly eleven by the time the next customer comes by. Even Orly and Marius have left, about an hour after Fjord – with a polite nod from Orly, and a stuttered _thank you_ from Marius after Orly had prompted him with an elbow to the ribs.

She’s still not _exactly_ clear what they were doing sitting there, silent and sans coffee for over two hours, but she hopes they had fun. She certainly did, if only through imagining their many dramatic pirate adventures.

Nonetheless, her whole shift so far – barring Fjord’s surprising appearance – has been _incredibly_ boring. It’s given an odd tension to the night, as though the steadily darkening sky is holding its breath. _Is waiting_ for something, though she can’t think _what_.

The graveyard shift at a coffee shop seems like a bad time to be waiting for anything specific, though she’s admittedly never done one before, so– who knows! Perhaps the Traveller will provide some amusement.

The man who walks through the door next doesn’t feel like a present from the Traveller, but is at least _significantly_ more interesting than the pirates. He’s got perfectly-coiffed silver hair, frankly _dreamy_ eyes, and is wearing the kind of cloak Jester’s only ever seen on a theatre stage or at particularly avante-garde drag clubs. It’s a desaturated purple-grey, covered all over in delicate, geometric embroidery picked out in silver thread, and is heavily ornamented at the shoulders with an odd, pauldron-like mantle.

With its high collar and floor-length hem, it’s the kind of cloak that makes you wonder what its owner is wearing underneath. Or rather, whether the owner _is_ wearing anything underneath.

Jester’s pretty sure she’s seen the guy before, hanging around the Dynasty night club once the sun’s gone down – but that’s on entirely the other side of town, just across the street from Empire. Which begs the question, really, of what on earth he’s doing _here_ , in a dodgy coffee shop, at nearly midnight.

She’s always loved a good mystery. The Lavorre Detective Agency is _officially_ on the case.

“ _Hello_ , and welcome to _Nott A Coffee Shop_!” she says, as brightly as she can. Step one in any investigation: get them to drop their guard. “What can I get for you today? Or, like, tonight, really, because it’s _pretty_ late right now.”

The man sets one hand on the counter, drumming fingers absently – perhaps even _anxiously_ , her detective instincts suggest – against the scuffed wood. His fingernails are immaculately manicured. “A matcha latte, please. Hot, no sugar, with soy milk. Is Caleb Widogast around, do you know? This is usually his shift.”

“Who are you?” asks Jester, cheerfully and unabashedly nosy. Step two in any investigation: lose patience with the correct detective method and just _ask_. Besides, it’s weird to be buying coffee super late, so he can’t get mad at _her_ for asking weird and nosy questions. “How do you know Caleb? Like, no offence, but I didn’t really think he, you know… knew… people.”

The man’s shoulders shift, tense, and the effect it has on his cape is that of a bird puffing its feathers up. “I am– Essek. Caleb and I, we are, ah… friends,” he says, eventually. “I come in here most weekends, and I have not seen _you_ before, either.” He sounds almost offended by her presence.

“Oh, so you’re like, boyfriends, then?” says Jester. Everyone around here seems to be horny for one another, and they’re _all_ super weird and cagey about it – other than Nott, who she kind of wishes was a little _more_ cagey – so it seems like the safest assumption to make.

The cape-feathers puff up further, and Essek bristles. “ _Not_ boyfriends,” he says, coolly, and the faint underlying panic in his voice really doesn’t help his case at all. “Just friends.”

“So like. Just having sex…?” hazards Jester. “Or like, you really _want_ to have sex, but Caleb’s got that whole weird thing going on with Nott, and also I think probably Yeza too, and _also_ he’s _kind of_ a little bit stinky–”

“A _coffee_ ,” interrupts Essek, both emphatically and exhaustedly. “ _Please_.”

He doesn’t raise his voice, but his expression speaks volumes.

Jester takes pity on him, and makes his coffee. She can’t remember what he ordered initially, but that doesn’t make much difference, since the only thing she can make is a bunch of over-brewed coffee in a cup with some added milk. She _does_ remember to microwave the milk though, this time, so it doesn’t end up as lukewarm as Fjord’s.

Just because Essek seems like the kind of guy who’d appreciate it, she adds a generous helping of whipped cream on the top, too.

“That’s… however much you usually pay for your drink?” hazards Jester, because yes, the prices are right there on the board, but she has no idea what Essek ordered and _also_ no idea what she’s just made. “Or just like, maybe six copper or something, I guess.”

“You are a _terrible_ salesman,” Essek informs her, in a remarkably polite tone, but flips her a silver nonetheless. When he takes a tentative sip of his drink, his mouth purses with revulsion. “And also a terrible barista, apparently. That is actually quite impressively disgusting.”

Jester smiles widely. “It’s my first shift! And they didn’t actually tell me how to use the machine, so… you know. I’m learning!

“I can tell. Keep the change.” Essek takes another sip of the coffee, and grimaces once more, as though surprised it’s still just as bad as he remembers. “And let Widogast know I came by, if you see him.”

“I could give him a kiss from you?” suggests Jester, gleefully, as she drops the silver into the till.

“ _Absolutely not_.”

* * *

The final customer of the night arrives at quarter to midnight, barely before closing, and Jester _immediately_ decides this is the person she’s been waiting for all night – mostly because she _really_ wants this to be the person she’s been waiting for all night.

This new customer dressed in some kind of well-worn, fancy martial arts gear, is carrying a large and lethal-looking stick, and is – entirely relatedly – one of the hottest women Jester’s ever seen. The undercut, abundance of facial piercings, and the general attitude of _fuck around and find out_ definitely helps.

Jester is immediately and delightedly convinced that her shift is about to get ten times as interesting.

“Hello!” she says, turning on the charm as best she can at near-midnight after one _hell_ of a first shift. “Welcome to _Nott A Coffee Shop_. What _ever_ can I get for you today– tonight?”

“Hey, uhh, three espresso shots, please. Name’s Beau,” says, presumably, Beau, as though there’s anyone else in the coffee shop that Jester might _possibly_ confuse her order with. “Also, there’s a guy dealing MDMA in your parking lot. Y’know. Just in case you give a shit.”

“Umm,” says Jester, for a long second, as she tries to process all of that. “Let me just, um, call my boss? Because he _might_ be, like, their employee, or something? And I only just got this job, so I, like, _really_ do not want to lose it by being rude to one of their other employees, you know?”

Beau stares at her. “You, uh… probably shouldn’t be telling your customers that your bosses are drug dealers?” she hazards. She looks confused, and also interested against her better judgement – an emotional mix that Jester’s used to inducing in people. “What if I was, like, an undercover cop or something, dude?”

“ _Are_ you an undercover cop?” asks Jester, genuinely curious. She’s never met a cop with a giant wizard-stick and the number of piercings that Beau has, but there’s a first time for everything.

“ _Fuck_ no.” Beau pulls a face, like she’d been about to spit on the ground and thought better of it.

Jester shrugs. “Then it’s not a problem!” She grabs the phone behind the counter off the hook before Beau can say anything else, and starts dialling. There’s a number taped underneath the handset that she _hopes_ goes to Nott, and if it doesn’t… well. If things get _really_ desperate, there’s always trying to wake up Caduceus as a fall-back.

The number, thankfully, _does_ go through to Nott. “ _Yes_?” snaps the unmistakable, too-much-coffee, not-enough-sleep, I’ve-been-screaming-for-the-past-three-hours dulcet tones of her boss. “What is it? I’m in the _middle_ of something here.”

The noises in the background give Jester a pretty good idea of what she’s in the middle of. Or rather, _who_ she’s in the middle of.

Jester immediately tries to blank that particular thought from her mind.

“Oh, hey Nott!” she says, as cheerily as she can manage when part of her brain is busy wondering whether that moan just then belonged to Yeza or Caleb. “I am super sorry to bother you, but a customer just came in and said there’s a guy selling– um, MDMA? In your parking lot. And I didn’t know whether he was, you know–”

“ _Mollymauk_ ,” interrupts Nott through gritted teeth, undiluted rage filtering through the static of the line. “That _fucker_! Go tell him that if he’s not off my property in thirty seconds, I’m going to shoot him. With my crossbow.”

Before Jester can respond, the line goes dead.

Jester puts the phone back on the hook, gingerly, like it might bite. “Okay,” she says, more to herself than anything. “ _Okay_.” She turns back to her waiting customer, a faintly panicked smile on her face. “Miss Beau. I cannot remember at _all_ what you ordered, but you are going to have to give me like _five_ minutes, because I like. _Really_ have to deal with this. I am _very_ sorry.”

“Alright,” says Beau, with an unbothered shrug and the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I’ll wait.”

* * *

“Uh, hey?” calls Jester, from her position in the doorway of the coffee shop, one hand clasped around her Traveller pendant for good luck. She’s not _wildly_ keen about stepping outside unless she has to – this way, at least, if anything happens she can lock herself safely in the shop. “Mister drug dealer, sir? My boss says you need to leave, or she’s going to shoot you with her crossbow. Those are her words, by the way! Not mine.”

There’s a moment’s silence as the man turns to face her, and even though he’s all the way across the car park, Jester still holds her breath and braces herself.

“ _Again_?” yells the guy, indignantly, which… was really not the response Jester was expecting. “Fuck you, Nott!” He raises his middle fingers to the sky, and spins in a circle, and Jester’s pretty sure the guy is either crazy or high off his own supply. Or both. Which is _super_ valid of him, but also doesn’t bode well for her getting him out of the parking lot quickly and easily.

“Mister drug dealer, sir, you really, _really_ need to leave, because I don’t think she’s joking about the crossbow thing,” calls Jester, anxiously. She _really_ doesn’t want to see a guy murdered via crossbow on her first shift.

The guy spins to face her again, face twisted into a scowl. “I _know_ she’s not joking, I’ve still got the scars from the _last_ time. Asshole! Absolute asshole!” He yanks up his shirt to show off a stomach covered in an exceptional number of pale scars and brightly coloured tattoos, and jabs his finger at a particularly livid mark across his ribs. “Look!”

Jester squints at him through the gloom, the parking lot lit faintly by dim yellow street lamps. She’s not entirely sure what a crossbow bolt scar looks like, but if she had to hazard a guess, it would look a lot like _that_. “Then… I mean, I do _not_ want to sound rude, but, like… why did you… come back? If you got _shot_? I mean, that seems pretty–”

“Oh _fuck off_ , you don’t get to judge me for–”

There’s a distant twang, and a _thump_ , and the guy jump several feet back with a yelp. There’s something that looks remarkably like a crossbow bolt sprouting from the tarmac where he was standing seconds before. “Bahamut’s necrotic left fucking _testicle_ , woman! Are you _trying_ to kill me? I’m out here, trying to earn an honest living–”

“Yes! I am! Get off my _fucking_ property, Mollymauk!” Nott’s voice is distant, from a window above the shop proper, but her particular nails-on-chalkboard tone is unmistakable. “Next time, I’m not going to fucking miss!”

“ _Fuck you_!” yells the guy, once again at the sky rather than at the window. He does get moving, though, sprinting across the parking lot with his elaborately embroidered coat flapping out behind him. Jester notes, absently, that his shirt is fluorescent tie-dye with an obscenely deep V-neck, and his pants are tight enough they look like they should be cutting his circulation off.

He skids to a halt next to an _exceptionally_ battered and shitty-looking Kia, its rear plastered with bumper stickers, and fumbles with the keys.

Another crossbow bolt slams into the place he’d been standing a half-second after he manages to get into the driver’s seat. A yelp of indignation is the last thing Jester hears before the car door slams shut, and the engine starts up with with a wheezing growl.

Jester watches him peel out of the parking lot and off into the night, before turning her gaze back to the two crossbow bolts still embedded in the ground. And then, after a long moment, she turns and heads back inside.

* * *

“Well!” says Jester, brightly, once she’s back behind the counter. She feels a little like she’s just been clubbed over the head, but she’s absolutely not going to let that get in the way of her cheerfulness. “The drug dealer guy is gone, and no one got shot even a _little_ bit, so I think that went pretty well, to be honest.”

Beau raises an eyebrow at her.

Distantly, from outside the closed coffee shop doors, there comes the sound of a revving engine, the screech of tyres, and a string of howled – and, frankly, impressively creative – obscenities.

“The drug dealer guy is not dealing drugs in our parking lot any more,” corrects Jester, glancing out the window as the car pulls off again with more screeching and tyre smoke. “So that’s fine. Probably. _Aaaaanyways!_ What did you want to order, because I like, _totally_ forgot to do that before the whole crazy-guy-in-the-parking-lot thing.”

“Three espresso shots, please.” In Jester’s absence, Beau has dragged one of the window-seat bar stools over to the counter and is perched on it, one elbow on the counter and her chin on her fist. She watches Jester with a hawk-like intensity as Jester fiddles with first the coffee grinder and then the coffee machine, trying desperately to look like she knows what she’s doing.

A peaceable silence falls over the café, punctuated only by the hiss and spit of the coffee machine, and the intermittent sounds of tyres and yelling as the drug dealer does his laps.

“You know,” says Jester, after the third of the laps, as the coffee machine spits a third espresso of dubious quality into a small paper cup, “that guy is _really_ persistent. I mean, I’m happy he’s like, _committing_ , you know? But also I _really_ hope he leaves before I have to go home. This is my first shift, and my mamma would be _super_ mad if some weird guy murdered me over it.”

“Fucking hell,” mutters Beau, dragging a hand over her face as Jester sets her coffee order in front of her. She slams back the first of the espresso shots like it’s tequila – and, judging by her expression, she wishes it was. It’s probably for the best, though, since Jester’s pretty sure she’d burnt the coffee whilst making them. “Look, do you want a lift home? As long as you’re not on the other side of the city or anything, I can like… drop you off, or whatever.”

“Well, my mama said never to get in a car with a stranger,” says Jester, thoughtfully. “But _also_ , I don’t think my mama would be very pleased if I got killed by that guy outside, so okay! Yes please.”

One of Beau’s eyebrows climbs practically into her hairline. Jester grins. She likes keeping people on their toes.

After a moment, Beau snorts, though she still looks like she’s trying to work out whether Jester’s being serious or not. “Molly won’t kill you,” she says, with a wave of her hand. “But he _might_ be an annoying prick and yell at you out his window for like three blocks. And there’s plenty of nastier assholes around at this time of the night. This isn’t a great area for a pretty woman like you to be wandering around after dark.”

As with Officer Bryce, Jester doesn’t mention the judo black-belt, or the switchblade, in favour of basking in the clear flirting going on here. Her self-defence training can be a fun little surprise for another time – assuming she ever sees Beau again, that is.

Instead, she squints at Beau, and then at the headlights that flash by outside the cafe windows. The dealer– _Molly_ might have stopped yelling, but he’s clearly still doing laps. “You know that guy?” she asks, confused.

“Oh yeah.” Beau shrugs, casually, and tosses her first espresso back like it’s a shot of tequila, with an expression to match. Jester’s not sure whether to be impressed or disgusted. “We go way back. Brother-from-another-mother, y’know. Asshole-from-another–” She pauses. “Fuck. I don’t know what rhymes with asshole. You get the idea.”

“So why did you tell on him then?”

“Someone’s gotta keep him humble,” says Beau, grinning – which explains absolutely nothing, but that’s fine. Jester’s largely written this shift off as a fever dream anyway.

“Well, okay then!” Jester smiles widely to cover her confusion. “Let me just get my coat and lock up, and then we can go, I think – if you’re okay with that, I guess, since it’s your car. But it’s pretty close to midnight anyways, and I don’t think anyone else is going to come in for coffee with that guy outside so…”

Beau hasn’t paid, she remembers briefly, before deciding she _super_ doesn’t care. It’s midnight, her boss is having sex somewhere above her head, her coworker is still passed out in the back room, and she doesn’t even know how to use the coffee machine. They’re not going to miss a silver’s worth of espresso.

“Yeah, sure.” Beau flaps a hand, and takes her second and third espresso shots in the same manner as the first. Jester watches, fascinated. “Do whatever you gotta do, I can chill for a bit.”

Jester frowns. “I think I literally just have to lock the door…?” she says, hesitantly. That doesn’t seem like quite enough for a whole locking-up _procedure_ , but she’s not quite sure what else it could entail. She thinks, again, of Caduceus asleep in the back room, and sighs. “Nott– my boss didn’t really give me any instructions, so… I mean, it’s probably fine, right?”

Shrugging, Beau stacks the three paper espresso cups neatly in front of her, and pushes them across the counter for Jester to bin. “I dunno, dude, you’re the one that works here. Can’t you just call your boss again, ask her what you should do? Or, like, yell at her for not giving you any fucking training on how to run a shop or use a coffee machine.”

“I mean, I _could_ , but also she _kind_ of sounded like she was… you know… in the _middle_ of something last time I called, so…”

Beau looks at her, blankly.

“Fucking,” clarifies Jester. “Like she was just about to get _really_ nasty or something. She was kind of annoyed with me, to be honest. So I probably should _not_ call again, because she’ll be _really_ annoyed. And also because I _super_ do not want to hear that.”

“Dude,” says Beau. Despite the three espressos, she looks exhausted. “You gotta get better at knowing what’s appropriate to share about your boss’s life with customers. I did _not_ wanna know that Nott fucks.”

Jester grins, and leans in. “She does!” she says, in a conspiratorial whisper. “Like, a _lot_. Like, she has a husband, _and_ a boyfriend. And a child!”

“Gods.” Beau drags a hand over her face. “Okay. Okay. I need a fucking drink. Come on, kiddo, grab your shit and let’s go.”

“I could make you another coffee?” offers Jester, grabbing her coat off the stand by the door. When she checks the pockets, she's grateful to realise everything she left in there is still there. She makes a mental note to keep it behind the counter, next time – everyone who had come in had been _super_ nice, but they were also probably _definitely_ criminals. No point in tempting fate.

Beau shakes her head, and holds the door open like she’s some kind of fancy gentleman. “Nah, I’m good. Thanks, but post-midnight’s more, like, vodka hours though.”

There’s no vodka in the shop to offer Beau – that Jester knows of – so she skips out the door instead, grateful for the sudden absence of coffee-smell in the air. It’s not something she thought she could get bored of, but after six hours, the burnt smell of coffee beans and the acrid smell of drying grounds seems to have worked its way into her very pores. Even the usual city smells of low-grade pollution and distant weed seems like an improvement.

“Uh. Hey? Don’t you need to lock up?”

Jester stops her skipping and admiration of the night air abruptly. “Oh shit, I _do_. That would have been like. _Really_ bad.” She doubles back, locks the door, and briefly debates what to do with the key before dropping it into her pocket. That seems like a Tomorrow Jester problem. “Okay! All done. Where’s your car?”

“…This way.” Beau looks like she’s questioning her life choices further with every passing minute, but she still heads across the parking lot to one of the few cars still left there – a clearly second-hand but lovingly maintained pick-up truck, with a tarpaulin lashed over the back.

Jester _desperately_ wants to know what’s under it, and is debating whether pleading or sneaking is a better route to achieve her goals, when a familiar bumper-sticker’d Kia skids into the parking lot at high speed.

It overshoots at a terrifyingly narrow margin, and pulls up several meters behind her and Beau with a screech of tyres and some truly atrocious driving. The window rolls down to reveal the drug dealer guy from earlier, looking only moderately less crazy than he had when he was being shot at, with no seatbelt on.

Jester’s hand dips towards the pocket with the switchblade, surreptitiously. Beau had said he was fine, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared.

“Traitor!” yells Molly, leaning precariously out the window of his beat-up Kia. With Beau at her side, he no longer looks quite so intimidating. In fact, between the atrociously psychedelic t-shirt, the mess of purple hair, and the cheap jewellery, he looks positively comical. Thinking back on it, Jester’s pretty sure she’s seen him around campus, in furtive, probably-definitely-drug-dealing conversation with various students.

Beau flips him the bird, and Molly sticks his pierced tongue out at her – and Jester’s doesn’t have any siblings, but she knows the signs of a sibling rivalry well enough.

“You snitched on me for a _girl_?” he continues, indignant, leaning even further out the window. Jester’s not sure how he hasn’t fallen out yet. The edge of the window must be digging into his hips something awful. “I can’t believe it. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer, _Beauregard_.”

“Your ‘lawyer’ ate me out behind a ‘Spoons last Grissen,” Beau snaps back. “ _Mollymauk_.”

“ _Nice_ ,” says Molly, so quickly Jester’s fairly sure it’s a reflex, especially the hand he half-raises for a high-five before realising that Beau’s still three meters off from him. “But, really? _Really_?” He raises an eyebrow, and groans when Beau simply smirks. “Betrayal! Betrayal from every angle, I tell you…”

“You have a _lawyer_?” is the only thing Jester takes from the exchange. She tries to keep the scepticism out of her voice. She really, really does.

Beau snorts. “He doesn’t. Yasha’s just kinda tall and good at scaring people.”

Molly grins, looking oddly proud. “Like I said! She’s my lawyer.”

“I don’t think lawyers go around just scaring people, really,” says Jester, and doesn’t bother to try and hide her doubt this time. She’s grinning, though. Molly seems pretty funny, when he’s not yelling at her like some kind of creepy potential murder. “You need, like, a degree, and a bunch of training, and everything…”

“Scaring people is the _only_ thing lawyers do, sweetheart,” drawls Molly. He turns back to Beau. “She’s _cute_ , where’d you find her?”

“Piss _off_ , dude.” Beau waves a hand at Molly, apparently tired of the banter. “I’m giving her a lift home. Mostly so she _doesn’t_ get called cute by weirdos hanging out of a car window.”

“…Fair point well made.” Molly wiggles his way back into the driver’s seat. “Well, if you’re going to be boring about it, I’ll be taking my leave. Ta-ta for now! You lovebirds have fun. The night is young, etcetera etcetera.”

Beau flips him the bird, _again_ – not that it does much good. Molly just cackles, wildly, and revs the engine until it sounds like it’s dying as he screeches his way out of the parking lot and off down the road.

“Asshole,” mutters Beau, but the corner of her mouth is crooked up as she closes the remaining distance to her battered pick-up truck. “He’s lucky I don’t report him to the fuckin’ cops.”

Jester skips after her, and bounces on her toes a little as Beau opens the doors – manually, with a little key, which Jester finds fascinating. “He seems fun!” she says, as she slips into the passenger seat, tugging the door shut behind her. “I like him.”

“Don’t fucking tell _him_ that,” mutters Beau, as she climbs into the driver’s seat. “It’ll just go straight to his head, which is the last thing we need. Dude’s got an ego you could see from the fucking moons.” The pick-up starts with a cough, a splutter, and a growl worthy of most monster trucks. Jester’s seat starts vibrating. “So. Where am I dropping you, huh?”

And sure, it’s Da’leysen – or, well, technically _not_ Da’leysen any more, since she’s pretty sure it’s gone midnight by now. Sure, she has classes tomorrow, and Nott may or may not fire her for not locking up properly, stealing keys, and leaving Caduceus passed out next to the proving draws. Sure, she met Beau less than an hour ago, and for all she knows the woman might be some kind of cannibal axe murderer.

But, after the three days she’s had, Jester feels like she deserves a little impulsivity.

“I don’t know,” she says, swinging her legs in the footwell and smiling as sweetly as she can, canines peeking out over her lower lip. “Where _are_ you dropping me? I don’t drink, but I’m _pretty_ sure you mentioned vodka, so…”

The sputter she draws from Beau, though, as they peel out of the parking lot and into the dark streets of the city, is _so_ worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the back of beau's truck is filled with just a shit tonne of fireworks, if anyone's curious. where did she get them from?? don't worry about it :))) / this chapter was written to "[Sunflower](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApXoWvfEYVU%22)" by Post Malone & Swae Lee.
> 
> as always, find me @sparxwrites on tumblr or @sparxwriting on twitter.


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